Curtains Will Get Chicago Premiere at Drury Lane in 2009; Griffin Will Stage Funny Girl

The Tony Award-nominated musical written by John Kander, Fred Ebb, Peter Stone and Rupert Holmes will be directed by William Brown. Previews will begin March 19, 2009, toward an opening of March 26. The run will play to May 17.

Brown will make his Drury Lane directorial debut with Curtains. He's a multiple Jeff Award-winning director, having directed at numerous Chicagoland venues including the Writers Theatre, TimeLine Theatre, Northlight Theatre and the Goodman Theatre's annual production of A Christmas Carol.

Curtains, with book by Holmes (based on Stone's original) and songs by Kander, Ebb and Holmes, was nominated for eight 2007 Tony Awards; star David Hyde Pierce won the Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical, for playing a stage-struck Boston police detective investigating a murder backstage at a Broadway-bound musical.

The Drury Lane season was also announced and will include four other musicals that have never been seen on the Drury Lane stage, including:

The country-fried musical revue Pump Boys and Dinettes, with book, music and lyrics written by a performance group composed of John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann, directed by Shawn Stengel, May 28-Aug. 2, 2009.

Kander, Ebb and Joe Masteroff's Cabaret, directed by Jim Corti, Aug. 13-Oct. 11, 2009.

Jeanine Tesori and Dick Scanlan's Jazz Age musical comedy Thoroughly Modern Millie, directed by Drury Lane artistic director William Osetek, Oct. 22-Dec. 20, 2009.

The Jule Styne-Bob Merrill-Isobel Lennart musical Funny Girl, the semi-autobiographical tale of entertainer Fanny Brice's meteoric rise to fame and her stormy relationship with Nick Arnstein, directed by Gary Griffin (The Color Purple), Dec. 31, 2009-March 7, 2010. For more information visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com.

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